by Ed McBain
“Mm,” Bobby said. “Who’s this Angela Cannieri in Great Neck? Tony Cannieri’s daughter?”
“I don’t ask those kind of questions,” Billy said.
“I’ll bet it’s Tony’s daughter,” Bobby said. “He’s fuckin’ a spic, too, huh? Rodriguez. That’s a spic, ain’t it?”
“Well, I told you, Mr. Triani, all I do is pick ’em up and drop ’em off. I don’t ask questions whose daughters they are or whether they’re spies or Chinese.”
“One of them is Chinese?” Bobby asked, surprised, scanning the list of names again.
“No, no, I’m just saying.”
“You got phone numbers, too?” Bobby asked. “For these girls?”
There it is, Billy thought. Just what I figured.
“No, sir,” he said, “I don’t. But maybe Mr. Faviola can help you there.”
Bobby looked at him again.
“I don’t want Mr. Faviola to know you gave me these names, capeesh?” he said. He reached into his pocket and took out another roll of banded bills, smaller this time. “It might piss him off at you, he found out,” Bobby said, and tucked the roll into the shirt pocket with the other one. “You want to drive me home now?” he asked, and grinned like a shark.
Up here on the roof, Luretta could see the George Washington Bridge spanning the river, see the lights on the Jersey cliffs, see clouds scudding by on a stiff breeze. She sometimes thought the roof up here was the safest place in all Washington Heights. Wasn’t safe in the streets, wasn’t safe in the apartment, wasn’t safe anywhere but here on the roof. Night like tonight, quiet night like tonight, she could stand here near the parapet and look out over the river if she liked, or else move to the other side of the roof and look down at the lights of the cars moving by on the streets below. Up here she was queen of her own kingdom and she could do whatever she felt like doing.
You went to the movies, you saw men in tuxedos and women in long shimmering gowns, they’d be standing on a terrace someplace in midtown Manhattan, looking out at all the glittering lights of the city, sipping martinis in long-stemmed glasses. Here on the roof, Luretta sipped Diet Pepsi from a can, and looked out at the lights on the Jersey side, but she knew that someplace in New York there really were people like the ones in the movies, most of them white. Only time she’d ever seen black people in tuxedos and gowns was when her cousin Albert got married. Luretta had worn a pretty dress her mother’d made for her, this was before she’d started taking up with the Hundred Neediest, dragging in any junkie who’d share her bed and call her darling.
She knew her mother was doing crack.
Suspected it a month ago, learned it for sure this past Tuesday, when she found an empty vial in the bathroom. Knew it wasn’t Dusty’s because Dusty was on heroin, Dusty wouldn’t bother himself with something cost only seventy-five cents a rock, oh no, Dusty was a big man hooked on the big stuff. So here was her mother with a baby five months gone inside her, sleeping with a junkie and smoking crack that’d hook the baby, too, sure as shit. So what was Luretta supposed to do?
Up here on the roof, she had no worries.
Up here, she could feel the cool breeze touching her cheek.
Could look out over her kingdom.
Smile a little.
Little enough to smile about these days.
A tugboat was moving up the river. Chugging along, moving under the bridge, lights strung like diamonds in the sky.
The door to the roof opened.
“Thought you might be up here!”
His voice came like a cannon shot, exploding on the stillness of the night, spilling diamonds from the sky. Startled, she dropped the can of soda. It fell to the roof at her feet, rolled away trailing syrup. She started, to move from the parapet, attempting a flanking maneuver, trying to pass him and get to the metal door behind him. But he recognized what she was trying to do, and moved diagonally to intercept her, so that she was still standing with her back to the roof’s edge, the low parapet behind her.
“You mama wants you,” he said.
“What for?”
“Needs you t’pick up suppin f’her.”
Stepping closer to her. Forcing her to move a few steps back again, closer to the parapet at the roof’s edge.
“Pick up what?”
Her heart pounding.
“Suppin she needs.”
A step closer to her.
She could smell alcohol on his breath.
“What you got under that dress, girl?” he said.
“Get out of my way,” she said.
“Sweet li’l tiddies under that dress?” he said, and reached for her.
She shoved out at him instinctively, wanting only to push him out of her way, wanting only to get past him to the stairs. In her dream world, in her twinkling magic kingdom up here on the roof, he reacted by sidestepping at once—which he did—doing a sort of twisted little dance step that took him out of her way, but sent him spiraling toward the edge of the roof instead. In her dream world, here in her glittering magic realm where men in tuxedos sipped martinis with women in long shimmering gowns, he lost his balance, flailed at the air, looked startled, and then went over. One moment he was there, silhouetted against the lights of the bridge and the Jersey shore, and the next he was gone.
In her dream world, he didn’t make a sound as he fell.
No long trailing scream like in the movies.
Nothing.
It was as if he’d magically disappeared.
But that was in her dream world.
In real life, he recovered his balance at once and came at her snarling, ripping the front of her dress before she could break away, clawing at her breasts like a wild animal. She hit him with her clenched fists, and screamed, and tore free of his grasp at last, and went running down to the street, without stopping at the apartment to see what her mother needed, because she suspected that what she needed was crack.
In the street, walking on this balmy springtime night humming with voices, covering her torn dress with her spread hands, she began sobbing gently.
Detective/First Grade Randolph J. Rollins liked dealing with these people. He didn’t consider it working for these people, he considered it dealing with them. He knew cops in his precinct who were looking the other way when it came to serious crimes like dope. Rollins had never in his life taken a nickel for squaring a dope rap. These people he dealt with knew better than ever to ask him to square any kind of criminal offense, even a parking ticket. But when they came to him with something like this, find out if any of these broads are police informants, Rollins was happy to flash the tin in pursuit of the gold, which in this instance was exactly six thousand dollars.
Rollins knew it was next to impossible to flip anyone who wasn’t in deep shit to begin with. No one was going to become an informer unless you had something on him that could send him to jail for a long, long time. Better to sleep with the enemy than to sleep behind bars, no? So he ran a computer check to see if any of the women on the list had ever run into the law in any serious way. The only person with a felony arrest, and a subsequent suspended sentence, was a person named Oona Halligan, who turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous twentysomething redhead. He fell into step beside her as she came out of the Time-Life Building at ten minutes past five p.m. on the eighteenth of May, and showed his shield and said, “Good evening, I’m Detective Rollins, I wonder if I can ask you a few questions.”
The girl looked at him in surprise and then said, “How do you know who I am?”
Rollins explained that the super at her building in Brooklyn had pointed her out to him this morning, but he hadn’t wanted to approach her just then because he knew she was on her way to work, and he thought this might be a more convenient time. She still looked a bit puzzled, probably wondering how he’d learned where she worked, the super didn’t know that, but
he jumped in before she could question him further, and told her they were investigating a burglary in the building next door to hers, and he wanted to know if she’d seen anything or heard anything suspicious on the night of May fourteenth, this past Friday night, which she hadn’t, but which was all part of the bullshit. He then got down to brass tacks.
“Miss Halligan,” he said, “please forgive me for asking all these questions, but I have to fill out a report—in triplicate, no less,” he said, and rolled his eyes, “and I do need the answers.”
Oona had a cocktail date all the way downtown with a multimillionaire stockbroker, to hear him tell it, and she didn’t want to waste any more time here with a fat-assed detective investigating a dumb burglary in the building next door, of which there were probably hundreds in her neighborhood.
She said, “Well, if you make it fast, because I have a date.”
Which didn’t surprise him, her looks.
“Miss Halligan,” he said, “can you tell me what sort of work you do?”
“I’m a receptionist with a firm called Blue Banana Cosmetics.”
“Really?” he said.
The name of the company amused him. Blue Banana Cosmetics.
“Yes,” she said, and looked at her watch.
“How long have you been working there?” he asked.
“Since March,” she said.
“And before that?”
“I worked for an accounting firm.”
“Named?”
“Haskins, Heller, and Fein.”
“Where?”
“Here in the city.”
“How long did you work for them?”
“Six months. I got fired because I told the boss his way of doing something was stupid. Or dumb, I guess I actually said,” she said, and looked at her watch again.
“Ever been arrested?” he asked.
“Never.”
“Sure? I can check.”
“Hey, what is this?” she said.
“Routine investigation,” he said. “Not even a minor violation? Speeding? Parking in a no-parking …”
“I’ve had traffic tickets, yes.”
“Any DUI violations?”
“No. What?”
“Driving under the …”
“Oh. No. Never.”
“Nothing serious, then?”
“Nothing.”
“I can check,” he said again.
“Okay,” she said, and sighed heavily. “I was arrested when I was sixteen for possession of an ounce of a controlled substance. Marijuana. I got off with an ACD because it was a first offense and I was only sixteen and it was only an ounce. Okay?”
“Ever work for the police?” he asked.
“No. What?”
“Any strings attached to that ACD?”
An ACD was an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal. Rollins knew there’d have been no strings attached to it. This was a bullshit violation they were discussing.
“I don’t know what you’re suggesting,” Oona said. “I told you. This was just a lousy ounce of …”
“Were any deals offered?”
He knew no deals would have been offered.
“Of course not! For an ounce of marijuana?”
“Ever go in anywhere wearing a wire?”
“What?”
“Miss Halligan, I’m a police officer. If you were ever an informant for the department, the information is safe with me.”
“What?” she said.
“Were you? An informant? Ever?”
“I thought this was about a burglary next …”
“It is,” he said. “But we have reason to believe a member of the force may be involved,” he said, lying. “I’m telling you this in strictest confidence.”
Oona blinked.
Gorgeous green eyes wide open now.
“I knew about the adjournment,” Rollins said, lying.
She kept staring at him.
“You’ve never done any work for the police, is that right?”
“Never.”
“Wouldn’t know any bent cops, would you?”
“I don’t know any cops at all. I don’t even remember the names of the ones who arrested me.”
“In that case, thank you, Miss Halligan, sorry to have bothered you.”
“Not at all,” she said, and looked at him, still baffled, and then looked at her watch again, and hurried off toward the subway kiosk on the corner.
He figured she was clean.
Rollins didn’t get to the end of his list until that Friday, the twenty-first of May. He showed his shield to the doorman of the building on Eighty-First Street, asked him what his name was …
“Luis,” the doorman said.
. . . and then told him that everything they said in the next few minutes was to be held in strictest confidence, did he understand that? This was an ongoing police investigation, and he was not to reveal this visit to anyone, was that clear?
Luis almost wet his pants.
His sister was an illegal alien from the Philippines.
He nodded and assured Rollins that he would not tell a soul the police had been here.
Rollins went inside and looked at the mailboxes, jotting down several names at random. He came back out again and started asking questions about the various nameplates in the boxes, really wanting to know only about the nameplate for 12C, which read M. WELLES. He tossed in a few red herrings to keep Luis off base, and then he said, “How about Welles? Know who’s in apartment 12C?”
“Oh, yes,” Luis said. “Mr. and Mrs. Welles and their daughter.”
“What’s her first name?”
“Mollie,” Luis said.
“Mrs. Mollie Welles?”
“No, no, tha’s dee daughter,” Luis said.
“What’s the mother’s first name,” Rollins asked, closing in for the kill.
“I don’ know,” Luis said.
“How, about the husband? Know his name?”
“Michael,” Luis said. “Michael Welles.”
And clear out of the blue, he added, “He worrs for the DA’s Office.”
“What it is,” Rollins was explaining to them, “he’s the deputy chief DA in the Organized Crime Unit.”
In the rearview mirror, Petey exchanged glances with Bobby.
The three men were driving through Queens in Petey’s car, which he knew was not bugged because he had it checked by a mechanic every Friday. He’d had it checked yesterday, and he knew it was clean. He almost wished it was bugged, this kind of information. Andrew Faviola fucking a DA’s wife, this was information he’d love them to hear downtown. Rollins was sitting on the front seat beside him. Bobby Triani was in back. The car was a new Cadillac Seville with dual air bags and a telephone. It was a gift from a person for whom Petey had done a favor, like having somebody break his wife’s boyfriend’s legs. Rollins had one arm draped over the back of the seat. He kept turning his attention from Bobby to Petey and back again.
“I checked the minute this spic doorman told me where he worked. Turns out he investigated and tried a very big case five years ago, put away the whole Lombardi Crew, six of them altogether. They’re still doing OCCA time.”
“What’s his name again?” Bobby asked.
“Welles. Michael Welles.”
“Michael Welles,” Petey said.
“Yeah.”
“The Lombardi Crew.”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s possible,” Bobby said.
Rollins knew better than to ask what was possible.
“That she could be the one,” Petey supplied.
Rollins still said nothing.
“You’re sure she’s this guy’s wife, huh?” Bobby said. “The one done the Lombardi C
rew?”
“Positive.”
“What’s her name?”
“I still don’t have it.”
Bobby sighed.
Petey sighed, too, and nodded to Bobby in the rearview mirror.
Bobby began peeling off hundred-dollar bills.
“Thanks, Randy,” he said, “you done a good job.”
Rollins liked dealing with these people.
They gave good weight for the pound, and they always paid cash on the barrelhead.
“I hear you’re serious about some girl,” Ida said.
She looked a lot like her father, with Rudy’s strong nose and ink-black hair. Andrew could never be with her without thinking of the little girl she’d once been. The Sunday visits to Grandma’s house. Roller-skating with her on the sidewalk outside. Watching television together in the room Grandma had that looked as if it had come straight from Italy on a boat carrying olive oil, a small, warm, cozy room with red velvet drapes and big heavy furniture and ornately framed pictures of mustachioed men in stiff white collars and cuffs.
Whenever he came to Ida’s house on a Sunday, Andrew spent most of the time there with her. Bobby he could see any day of the week. In fact, he sometimes saw Bobby more days of the week than he could stand. Ida he saw once every couple of months, if he was lucky.
“So who is she?” she asked.
She was at the stove, tasting the tomato sauce bubbling in a pot. She wasn’t such a terrific cook, Ida. She hadn’t been a great stickball player, either, but that hadn’t stopped her from trying. She was wearing a plastic apron over the blue dress she’d worn to church this morning. The apron had the words PLEASE DON’T KISS THE COOK printed on it.
“Where’d you hear that?” he said.
“Your father wrote to me,” she said, and shrugged. “He said when you went out there, you mentioned some girl. He told me he thinks it’s serious. You and this girl.”
“No, I never said anything like that, Ide.”
Ida wouldn’t let it go.
“You can tell me, come on,” she said.
“I’m telling you there isn’t anybody,” Andrew said, but he grinned like a schoolboy.
“Your father said it sounded serious.”
“He heard me wrong, Ida. I told him there was nobody serious. I mean it,” he said, and grinned again.